IDW G5 #2

[ZakuConvoy]

Issue #2 came out today. I...think we decided to start up individual issue threads, so it's easier for people to catch up.

This was a really good issue! I was actually surprised it's moving as quickly as it is. The art might even be getting better, and it started off pretty good. I just really like this artist for G5. And given the reveals in this issue...I'd say this issue is a MUST READ for everyone on the board. We get some information here that's going to be important later on.

Detailed thoughts below the spoiler.

Spoiler

First thing's first...fangirl Sunny is beyond adorable this issue!

She finally got to Disneyworld, dad! We do not deserve to have such purity in this fallen world of ours. Seriously, she is SO CUTE this entire issue.

Joe's Donuts! They remembered one of the only...four or five landmarks in Canterlot!

Izzy trying to eat the 100 year donuts. *sigh* Izzy is gross count: 1. Seems this version of Izzy has just a *little* bit of her Tell Your Tale characterization after all. Also, worth noting....they specifically call out these donuts for being 100 years old. So...is that how long it's actually been between G4 and G5? Or was that just when Canterlot was abandoned once and for all? 100 years doesn't really feel like enough time for all the changes, but it does seem like the most likely amount of time.

They kept the trap doors in the throneroom, I see.

Discord's got a pet possum! This HAS to be a reference to Luna's pet possum, Tibbles, who only showed up in the comics. IDW is keeping some of it's own lore around, after all.

Also, Discord still seems to have a love for tea parties. Fluttershy really did rub off on the guy.

Discord's actually a lot more affable than I was expecting. I thought he'd be a LOT more bitter and on a warpath. He seems a little tired and worn out, but that's mostly due to his aging a 1,000,000 years in a 100 years. Also, his magic is glitching, too. Is his magic tied to the Unity Stones, too, or is it because he's not feeling himself with all his friends gone?



We get another look at someone who's PROBABLY supposed to be Shadowy Alicorn (Let's call her "Shady" for now), who started out as a unicorn. You might think this debunks my "Sprout is Shady" theory...and it certainly doesn't HELP it. But, there's two things here. One, her eyes. She has cat-like slits for eyes in this issue, where as in Make Your Mark, she has blue eyes.

And, two...we STILL don't get a GOOD look at her. This could literally be anyone. This COULD just be some random entitled unicorn, which just had a domino effect, not some grand chessmaster. OR there's still a chance that Sprout knows about this legend, too (maybe from staying over at Sunny's house so often) and is only dressing up as Shady, without actually BEING her. OR it's possible Sprout's being possessed by Shady. Also...this is still IDW...I have a hard time considering it a..."solid" canon source? So, yeah, I'm still hitching my wagon to this theory.

But, as for who Shady is in the comic...it seems pretty in-character for Cozy Glow. I don't know how she got un-stoned, since she was still sealed away in the last episode, but this does feel like her MO. She's always been a manipulator. She's always set the different races against each other. If she ever got free again, and then aged a few years, she would probably try a plan like this to separate everyone AGAIN and look something like this. But...again, Cozy Glow has red eyes, Shady in MYM has blue eyes. Also, obviously, Cozy Glow's a pegasus, not a unicorn.

Diamond Tiara's another possibility. She DOES have blue eyes, and a similar mane style. But...again, she's a earth pony, not a unicorn. And she was really never THAT bad in the show. It'd be a stretch to make her a super-villain AFTER the show's already done.

So...I don't know what's going on here. Maybe we're looking at a reverse Mare-Do-Well situation. Maybe multiple ponies are using this alias to all commit crimes independently.




We gloss over a BIG chunk of backstory. This better be what the MYM show will get into. Shady must have done SOMETHING to manipulate magic itself. Fluttershy is just straight up running away from whatever it is.

And we get confirmation that Twilight and the Mane 6 created the Unity Stones. This was a mistake, but I wonder why she had to do this anyway? Did Shady manipulate the very SOURCE of magic, so they had to create some sort of "lock" or "reserve" for themselves? Again, I'm expecting MYM to explain (It better!).

Also, just pointing this out....Starlight Glimmer's nowhere to be seen. It's a weird omission. I know she's not really one of the Mane characters. And the Student 6 don't show up either. It's just...something I noticed.

Discord asks the Mane 5 for help making a decision...and then just does what he wants to do anyway. Well, you can't say Discord's changed over a 100 years, anyway. For a spirit of chaos, he's woefully predictable.

So even Discord can't destroy the Unity Stones. Odd, given how we saw them crack fairly easily in the MYM special. Also...WOULD destroying the crystals destroy magic for all time, or just undo Twilight's controls over it?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I want to believe. I'm not loving what they're doing with this story but it is a high quality comic. The art remains great and the characters sound about right.

As for the story, I'm going to obey the opossum and save my comments until the end. Maybe when this arc is over Twilight's plan will make more sense. If magic was already broken and this was a band-aid, I can accept that. That would explain a lot, actually.

We are dealing with an unreliable narrator who even admits he is leaving some things out, so who knows.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

This does make me wonder...what DID happen to ALL the OTHER magic? The Unity Stones only seemed to bring back magic for the ponies. I don't think we've seen anything else use magic since they brought magic back. Does magic ONLY work for the ponies right now, and all the other creatures and plants are still cut off?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Even Discord's magic is glitching (but not gone), so it seems like everyone is affected either way.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Yeah, but Discord is a odd case no matter which direction you look at it from. He's at least pony-adjacent, being partially pony (...right?), so he MIGHT be getting powers from the Unity Stones. And chaos magic isn't the same thing as regular magic, anyway. We really don't know much about it, but it MIGHT be coming from a different source.

I'd be curious about what happened to the Timberwolves, for example. Creatures that were made by magic (...probably), which either went extinct when magic disappeared or had to change in some way we haven't seen yet to adapt. And how the return of magic has or has not affected them.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

MLP often operates on videogame logic. I'd guess that when magic disappeared all the overworld enemies disappeared too. We've been told that dragons disappeared, so this seems to be the case.

Maybe this is what allowed ponies to make huge technological progress in however much time it's been. Their towns and cities stopped getting attacked all the time.

 

[Dvandom]

My big question is whether we're back to "Lasso the Moon" early G4 comics where the comics are free to come up with their own explanations for things but will be contradicted later, or we're seeing coordination between comics and cartoons and maybe we'll see the Final Days of Canterlot as an upcoming movie (or pre-credits part of one).

If this really IS the future of G4, returning magic has also changed it, as Earth Ponies never had "vulgar" magic in G4. The first G5 movie really made it look like G4 was in-setting fiction, though.

---Dave

 

[ZakuConvoy]

That's a fair question...which we probably won't get a answer to until after MYM's first season is over (...maybe next year? I know we're getting PART of the first season in September, I don't know if they'll go into this stuff in the first half or wait until the finale. Such is the way of Netflix). I AM expecting them to explain whatever this "worse thing" they're hinting at is, that seems like something MYM will get into. Mind...we already have a *small* inconsistency already, with Sunny's lighthouse being the old design rather than the Rainbow Brighthouse design. So...coordination isn't PERFECT, but probably better than G4, is my personal bet.

Good point about the earth ponies, the nature of magic is "changing" for some reason. My impression of the movie was that Sunny's dad was the only pony who remembered the Mane 6, and was teaching his daughter what stories HE knew. However Argyle ever found out about them, we still don't know.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I expect the show to contradict or ignore a lot of this. Hasbro is doing a better than normal job of keeping the branches of G5 on the same page in regards to certain things, but they seem to be doing variations on a common list of bullet points instead weaving together into one whole story. You don't have to follow every branch to know what's going on, but you can pick up the current piece of any branch and have some idea what's going on. Someday if the characters mention the time magic glitched out, it doesn't matter which version of that story you followed at the time. You know what you need to know to understand the current story.

 

[Dvandom]

G5 Pony continuity = G1 Transformers continuity.

---Dave

 

[CoffeeHorse]

That's probably the idea, but with a lot more shared bullet points. I doubt anything's going to be as different as Shockwave's personalities.

 

[Caldwin]

I really don't like that it's tied so much to G4. It's one thing to say that the current generation is set in the universe of a previous generation. I also don't mind the occasional cameo (like how McCoy, Spock, Scotty and Sarek all made appearances in Next Generation).

But when the whole point of an issue is to get everyone to Canterlot so we can dedicate 90% of this issue to a flashback of the old generation, that just feels like too much.

And maybe the fact that the G1/FiM crossover minimized any G1 involvement is unfairly coloring my read on this, but it really looks like everyone involved (IDW, Hasbro) is too scared to let FiM go and let G5 stand on its own.

I hope I'm wrong. I really do. Because I really thing stubbornly clinging to FiM can start to be detrimental to G5 sooner rather than later.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm guessing it's IDW. Hasbro wanted to try something new but IDW is on the verge of collapse and afraid to let go of something that worked well for them. I doubt we'd be seeing this if a new publisher had the license.

 

[blueskyscribe]

Huge mistake to have someone from G4 alive IMO, since part of the mystique of the G5 setting is "OMG what happened way back when? It's a huge mystery!" And now . . . there's just this GUY who can tell them exactly what happened. BOOOOO.

I'm disappointed by the strong G4 connection. I wanted to see something new. I guess I'll just skip the comics.

Edit: Sunny never seemed like a history nerd to me. She valued the past because, if her dad's tales were true, it would prove to modern ponies that unity was possible. But for her to nerd out over some long-abandoned gate in an empty ruin or to say "We made it, dad", as though finding this was her ultimate life goal . . . It feels very jarring. It feels like how Twilight Sparkle would react, not Sunny.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

They probably are writing Twilight out of habit but that part works for me. Even if Sunny's main concern was modern unity, it has to be incredibly vindicating to find out that some of the specifics of her dad's tales check out. I also don't feel like she knows too much. Even if G4 is entirely Arthurian legend tier, incomplete, contradictory, not taken seriously by any historian, well we've all heard of Camelot. Most historians assume the place is pure fiction but once in a while someone asks "Why are we so sure we know that?"

This would be better without Discord. But I'm not giving up yet.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

I will keep defending Discord's inclusion until I'm blue in the face. This has the possibility to be a really powerful story about letting go of the past (...we'll see if IDW can actually pull that off). And I still think we need to address what happened in G4 so we can move on to other things. Otherwise, we'll just have this dangling over our heads the whole generation. If they didn't want G4 connections, they shouldn't have had the "Mane 6" in the first 30 seconds of the first movie. Mysteries need to be solved. If the TV show doesn't want to do it, the comics are a pretty good place for it, especially since it's probably got a older audience, just due to the price of entry.

A lot of the criticisms I'm seeing on Equestria Daily are that this shouldn't be done in the COMICS, not that it shouldn't be done at ALL. A lot of people want this kind of a story in the show, proper. Discord is keeping my attention, I actually think he's a decent choice. Not TOO trustworthy, so they still have some wiggle room if they want to explain what "really" happened, but it also makes sense for him to still be around.

I can't really blame people for wanting this generation to stand on it's own. But...that ship's sailed, in my eyes. Everything this generation does just makes me ask "How did we get from point A to B?" Is it too early to solve these mysteries? I don't know. But, I'm not upset that they are trying to answer questions every fan of G4 must have had. If we get answers early on, maybe we can build something FROM those answers. We could use those answers to help us move forward. If you drag out a mystery just for the sake of it, it can backfire pretty bad. (Looks over at Lost. Or Battlestar Galactica.)




As for Sunny fangirling...it was cute. Cute excuses a LOT of sins. Plus, yeah, if you suddenly found the ruins of Camelot, or Atlantis, or El Dorado you'd probably fangirl, too.

This proves that her dad wasn't a nutjob. And SO MANY of the townsponies thought that Argyle was a nut for SO LONG, that anything that proves that her dad was right is guaranteed to pull on Sunny's heartstrings.

She's been hearing these stories since she was a foal. Of course she'd get misty about seeing her childhood stories come to life.

And Canterlot, in particular, seems to represent to Sunny that the three tribes CAN work together. It's a place where her dream USED to be true. It's a place that she wants to recreate and improve upon.

This works, in my eyes. She has a idealized view of Canterlot, but...in a lot of ways it's something that she wants to work back towards.

 

[Dvandom]

Of course, with Discord involved, it could all end up being a Q-style test, and he's not even from this reality. "Well, most of what I told you was true, but not the bit where magic faded and everyone forgot the past. But after a thousand years of harmony under Princess Twilight, I got bored and recreated one of the old mirrors so I could try visiting other ponies who might still be INTERESTING."

---Dave

 

[CoffeeHorse]

The thing I'm clinging to is Discord even admits he's leaving out part of the story. Anything he says is suspect until otherwise confirmed.